Mobile internet & telephony

Open source software is not merely making inroads into mobile internet applications and devices: it is dominating the market - and the trend towards openness of mobile systems is looking set to continue increasing.

The initial fragmentation of the mobile internet market with many suppliers of handsets and operating systems is reducing with strategic mergers and the setting up of co-operative trade bodies that are overseeing the development of industry standards. With these developments, interoperability between the largely open source powered devices is increasing in turn.

There is a lot of choice out there. This chapter gives you the background information that you need to help you decide your organisation's selection of mobile internet platform:

• Mobile device operating systems
• Sample applications for businesses and other organisations
• Mobile application development

The adoption of open standards is lagging a little behind, but this, too, is strengthening and broadening its reach.